A Look at 2D/3D Graphics Solutions

S3 Savage 3D

The next chip on the up-and-coming list, is the S3 Savage 3D. S3 is a company that has been under a lot of criticism lately. Mostly due to the poor 3D performance of it's graphics accelerators. When 3D was in its infancy, S3 was at the head of the pack. Eager to get market share with its newest chip, dubbed "Virge", the company set out on a mission to make themselves known throughout the 3D graphics industry. They accomplished that task, but they're known more as the "laughing stock" than the "big-dog".

After much analysis and contemplation, S3 has managed to make the Savage 3D the turning point for the their seemingly infinite plight. Boasting extremely satisfying performance and image quality at, or near that of the G200, the S3D will supposedly be faster than the Matrox's newest chip, and come at roughly the same price, which makes it a very enticing offer for the consumer.

Feature List
High Performance 3D/2D/Video Accelerator
New Single Cycle 3D Architecture
5M triangles/second Triangle Setup Engine
128-bit Dual Rendering Pipeline
125M pixels/sec Trilinear Fill Rate
Full AGP 2X Implementation including Sideband Addressing and AGP Execute Mode

3D Rendering Features
Single Cycle Trilinear Filtering
S3® Texture Compression
True Color Rendering
Void and Cluster Dithering for 16-bit Modes
Specular Lighting and Diffuse Shading
Alpha Blending Modes
MPEG-2 Video Textures
Edge Anti-Aliasing
Vertex and Table Fog
16- or 24-bit Z-buffering
Sprite Anti-Aliasing, Reflection and Environment Mapping, Texture Morphing, Shadows Procedural Textures, and Atmospheric Effects

2D Acceleration Features
Highly Optimized 128 bit Graphics Engine
Full Featured 2D Engine for acceleration of Bitblt, Rectangle Fill, Line Draw, Polygon Fill Panning/Scolling and HW Cursor
8, 16, and 32 bpp Mode Acceleration

High Speed Memory Interface
125MHz SDR SGRAM with Block Write
64-bit Synchronous Memory Bus
2-, 4-, or 8MB Frame Buffer
SDRAM for cost savings
SO-DIMM Memory Upgrade
512Kx32 or 256Kx32 Memory Parts

Motion Video Architecture
High Quality Up/Down Scalar
Motion Compensation
Subpicture Blending and Highlights
Optimized Software DVD Decoders
Streams ProcessorTM for on-the-fly stretching and blending of multiple video streams
Multiple Video Windows
Brightness, Hue, and Saturation Controls
60MHz VIP Video Port allows HDTV Resolutions
Glueless Interface for HW MPEG-2 Decoders and Video Digitizers